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29 Dec 2015

My photo of the year

It's that time of year when the media are identifying their person of the year,their car of the year or whatever. So as not to be left out I've chosen my personal photo of the year. Not an easy task as I've taken a few thousand photos in 2015. In Australia,the US and India. Photos of everything from bullock carts to Concorde. From all those photos here's my choice -taken a few weeks ago in Kochi, Kerala,India.
The man is a self employed porter. He carries sacks of rice,spices or whatever on his head from trucks parked in the busy street into a warehouse and vice versa. He gets paid per sack carried. As he goes to pick up a sack he picks up a coloured stick from a man standing by the truck and he hands the stick to another man when he has the sack on his head.The sticks are the mechanism for counting his work.
Kochi is usually very hot and humid. It's hard,physical work and when there are no trucks to load or unload he does not work or get paid.
His life is tougher than most of us can ever imagine and yet he was smiling and waving to me as he worked. Good on him and good riddance to all the snarling, joyless,mean spirited and in many cases outright evil people and corporations who did so much to make 2015 such a terrible year for so many. I'm fervently hoping that you will all get your comeuppance in 2016 but I'm expecting to be disappointed.
Another reason that this is my photo of the year is that for me it really "pops" off the screen. It has the look I am trying to achieve with all my photos. The fact that I had to walk backwards down the street like a paparazzi photographer at a celebrity sighting to take it and that it turned out so well also makes it my POTY.